1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a power adapter and, more particularly, to a power adapter having a replaceable plug.
2. Description of the Related Art
Normally, to acquire power for operation, a power adapter of an electric appliance needs to be plugged in a power socket. The power adapter has a plug mounted thereon to correspond to a power socket having a matching specification. Depending on country or region, the specifications of the power plug and the power socket may not be the same. As a result, a power adapter having a plug fails to be plugged in a power socket if the plug does not match the specification of the power socket.
To solve the issue, many vendors developed power adapters having detachable or replaceable plug structures so as to adapt to power sockets having different specifications. With reference to FIG. 9, a replaceable plug structure disclosed in Taiwanese patent publication no. 200922042 “Replaceable plug structure of a power adapter” has an adapter body (91), a plug seat (92) and a fixing cover (93). The adapter body (91) has a recess (94). The plug seat (92) has an engagement mechanism (95). The plug seat (92) is mounted in the recess (94) and can be moved to one side of the recess (94) to engage the adapter body (91) through the engagement mechanism (95). The fixing cover (93) is pivotally mounted to one side of the plug seat (92) and has two wedges (96). When the plug seat (92) engages the adapter body (91), the fixing cover (93) can be pivoted to cover the exposed portion of the recess (94), and the wedges (96) can be fixed on the adapter body (94). Hence, the plug seat (92) is locked on the adapter body (91) without moving inside the recess (94). The plug seat (92) is unlocked by flipping over the fixing cover (93) upwardly.
Given the conventional replaceable plug structure, the wedges (96) respectively engage with recesses (94) formed on an inner wall of the recess (94). When the fixing cover (93) is flipped over downwardly, the wedges (96) must slide through the inner wall of the recess (94) before entering the recesses (94). When being released from the recesses (94), the wedges (96) also slide through the inner wall of the recess (94). After being used for a long while, the wedges (96) and the inner wall of the recess (94) are worn out due to the abrasion contacts therebetween. Such wearing finally ends up with the loss of engagement function, so that the fixing cover (93) fails to be fastened within the adapter body (91) any more.